


somewhere only we know

by peraltiagoisland



Category: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Genre: M/M, i promise this fic is a lot more cooler than the premise, i took like a month to write ch 1, its wild i swear, pls like this :(
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-12
Updated: 2019-08-12
Packaged: 2020-08-20 03:02:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20220718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peraltiagoisland/pseuds/peraltiagoisland
Summary: It’s the end of Dennis’ ‘chase that baby lady away’ scheme when Dennis decides he’s gonna take off and ditch the gang after all the effort they put into helping him avoid becoming a father. It’s no matter to Mac, though. He knows Mandy’s number. AKA AU where Mac called Mandy up and went ‘where u at fam’, thereby tracking Dennis and going to North Dakota to find him, erasing at least a year of unseen canon angst *shudder*





	somewhere only we know

**Author's Note:**

> pls leave me a comment :( its been a bad day 
> 
> kudos also v v appreciated

“Well, now what?”

The world blurs over as the gang starts to talk over each other, but their words form like blobs in his mind, sound blobs. Of odd shapes and sizes, the color of bubbles, if he were to describe them. The clearest sound in his head is one of recent past. That door slamming, his parting words, and ashamed as he is to admit it, they echo in his head like a broken record. He wants nothing more than to take that record outside and smash it to bits, but he’s not strong enough.

Someone, he doesn’t notice in time, drops the rocket launcher in his arms, and the thing hits his lap like a ton of bricks before he’s able to grab onto it. He’s not strong enough. 

“Ow! What the hell?”

“Goddamn it, Mac, were you not listening again?” Dee snaps in annoyance as she looks at him, slightly more stern than usual. Oh. He can see it on her face now. She doesn’t like this any more than he does. 

“You gotta keep up man,” he turns around and sees Charlie emerging with two gallons of gasoline. “Think this is enough, Frank?”

“What are we doing?”

“What are we  _ doing?” _ They all look at him. “Mac, this was your idea.”

“You kept yappin’ on about blowing up Dennis’ piece of shit car. What, you don’t got the balls for it anymore?”

“Oh!” Mac laughs nervously now, grabbing hold of the RPG properly, gripping onto it for dear life. He only vaguely remembers suggesting that they blow up the Range Rover earlier, his lips moving and flapping about whilst his mind was out of commission. “Yeah! Yeah, of course I remember that. That’s like,  _ such _ a great idea, right guys?”

“I don’t know, I just wanna see that dickbag’s car blow up,” Dee smiles now, cracking open a cold one. “He’s gonna  _ freak _ when he finds out.” 

“Yeah,” Charlie points in agreement with Dee, looking gleeful for the moment as well, rubbing his hands together evilly. In fact, all of them seem very pumped up and happy about all this, but only Mac knows his glee is a facade for sure. “His face is gonna–” he scrunches up his face like he thinks Dennis would when in agony–”you know–”

“Wait, wait, wait, guys. Stop. What if Dennis comes back and he freaks out about all this? And then he leaves again?” 

He hears Frank scoff first. 

“Dennis isn’t coming back, dude,” Charlie says second, only a hint of resignation in his voice. “Screw him, man. If that guy comes back, I’ll like, like, punch him in the face, man!”

“Yeah.” Dee gets in on this momentum. “He treated us like shit,” she makes it sound almost like a revelation. “He treated  _ you _ like shit. So, fuck that. He’s getting his piece of shit car blown up.”

Frank is noticeably silent at the moment. Everyone knows it’s because he doesn’t get to complain regardless of how Dennis currently treats or has ever treated him. 

“He’s really… he’s really gone, huh?”

“Quit messin’ around.” Frank says, ticked off. “Blow up the car, don’t blow up the car, just don’t whine and cry on us.”

“Hell, if you don’t wanna do it, I’ll have a go–” Dee reaches out for the launcher and Mac instinctively moves away, shielding it with his body.

“No, no. Dennis treated me like shit, remember? You said that! You said that,” he grins, “I’m blowing up the car.”

She scoffs. “Oh my god, come on! If, if anything, he was the best to you, Mac. He treated me like shit, hell, you bitches all treat me like shit! So hand it over–”

“Dee, touch this RPG one more goddamn time and I’ll blow it all over your face, you bitch!” 

“Fine, fine, fine!” She raises her hands up, like declaring defeat. “Blow up the car you stupid idiot, you stupid, stupid–”

“Just let him blow up the car, Dee, god! Can you not be so emotional?”

“I’m not being emotional, you jackass!”

“Shut up!” Mac scoffs, annoyed with the noise and just wanting it to stop. “This is all annoying as shit, you guys. Let’s just go blow up that car,” he continues, distilling the anger and violent fury back down to a safe fifty. He leads the march out and the others cheer behind him, already pretending nothing angry or upsetting just happened. He points at Charlie, who’s holding the gasoline. “No dude, put that shit down. This baby’s powerful enough on it’s own.” 

“You sure, buddy?”

“Hundred percent, dude.”

They all line up outside the bar, a good distance away from the Range Rover, and Mac takes aim. A deep breath. One that they all hold together. He sends the grenade flying through the air, the sparks reminding him of fireworks and July, then  _ boom _ , in the midst of a second it lands and the love, the true love of Dennis’ life explodes, and all the memories within it, they vanish in a puff of smoke. Mac has never felt more alive than in these seconds, as his friends rally around him with praise, exhilaration, and solid fucking high fives. They laugh and milk this moment for all it’s worth, before their mouths run silent, the dying sounds of a car alarm drawing the scene to a flat close. It all becomes far too painfully real, now. 

Tears come to his eyes and he can’t tell what brings it; the soot and smoke? Or the emptiness within that now fills with fire and burns him up? His knees give way before he figures it out, his breath grows one too many then all at once, and the Gang starts to freak about his state around him, they fail to catch him, he slowly collapses to the ground.

He weeps. A pained long shout replaces the sobs for a good few seconds and then he returns to his horrific state all the more worse.    
  
“Mac? Hey, Mac? You hear me dude? Shit,” Charlie’s shaking him, he feels it, and being all up in his face makes everything so much worse until he realizes what he’s doing wrong and stops. 

“What the hell is wrong now?” he hears Frank ask.

“He’s all messed up over Dennis leaving.”

“Bu-but, we blew up the car and everything, wha–”

He blocks out anything else they say and focuses on trying to stop. At the moment, it’s just not working out, no matter what he does, no matter how many times he tries to breathe in pace, count to five, think of something calming, nothing. It’s all a total bust. He’s still in tears and a complete mess. Slowly but surely, he sees them all grow slightly more apathetic as time goes by. They’re all drinking again, and maybe… he should too? 

Strangely, that’s the thing that gets him up from the floor and down on a bar stool. He’s still very fragile, of course, but he manages to move, and he can wipe tears away from his cheeks without the action being futile. Wordlessly, Dee cracks open a beer and hands it to him. 

“You should call Dennis after that,” she gestures, referring to the beer. “Tell him to get his ass back here or something, who knows,” she sips her own drink and when he looks at her, her eyes are just a little more red than he’s used to seeing. “Maybe he’ll change his mind and come crawling back. Then we can all make fun of him.”

* * *

It’s almost worse when he calls Dennis. The sudden and fleeting soothe of hearing his voice, is soon met by the harsh tones and cutting words that come from the other line. 

“Hello? Hey, Dennis?”

“Mac?” A distorted sigh. “Look, whatever it is you’re gonna say, save it, bud. I’m disconnecting this phone soon. And I’m not coming back.”

“Wait wait wait–”

“What?”

Mac swallows. It never stops hurting, to ask and ask and ask from Dennis. To need. To want. It’s only gotten worse somehow after he came out, because what Dennis used to readily give he now dangles in the air before stomping hard on it. And yet that’s still better than the suffocation of hiding who he is from himself, so Mac takes it, along with the readiness with which he can say, to himself (and a select few others) that he is… who he is. 

“Could you… give me your new number? So we can stay in touch?”

Dennis takes the longest breath in and out before he responds.

“Yeah, sure. Don’t call me from it yet though, it won’t be activated until…”

“Until when?”

“Uh… tomorrow morning?”

Mac spends the next day desperately dialing Dennis on his supposedly new number. When he is directed to a mental health facility on his first ten tries, he begins to wonder if he heard the number wrong, or if Dennis said it wrong, or if the phone company fucked up. Fifteen tries later and he’s spiralling on his couch, lying face down, sweat rolling down his cheeks in place of the tears he can’t spare to cry. He tries variations of the phone number Dennis gave him, replaces some ones with twos, threes with fours, none of them work. At some point his world blurs over and he feels himself toss it, sends it flying through the air, doesn’t see where it lands, because he can’t. His breaths roll out short and fast, his heart runs so wildly he can’t feel his body keep up, he falls off the couch, he bites his lip to remember he can still feel but it’s all so numb.

His hands are shaking, and then they’re not. The sound of his phone ringing has him crawling and pouncing desperately on wherever it is, he finds it on the carpet and picks up the phone, too excited to check if it even is Dennis, because how could he know until he picks up the phone, right?

“Dude, where are you?”

“...what?”

“You’re super late, man!”

“For what?”

“For work! We’re all at Paddy’s dude, get your ass down here.”

He sighs. “What the hell is going on? Did you dipshits cook up some scheme again?”

This is when a muffled sound in the bar goes ‘what’s taking him so long?’ and Charlie pulls away from the phone to say ‘he’s still being all bitchy about Dennis ditching’.

“Uh–”

“Forget it, dude, I’m on my way.” Mac exhales, then dumps his phone back down on the ground. Hope evacuates to make space for reality’s purge once more. He sits up, slow but resigned. Dennis is out of the way, well out of his world, and everything’s a mess. But life keeps marching on.

* * *

“All of this shit sounds way illegal, guys.”

A collective, very much resentful sigh is let out through the room.

“You sure we need this sackless little dickhead bossing us around?” Dee says out loud, pointing to him with her thumb. 

“Who else is gonna carry that thing?” Frank retorts. “You?”

“Eh, leave him. He’s just pissed because Dennis gave him a mental health line instead of his real number,” he cuts himself off snickering, and the rest soon follow. This has Mac on guard, whipping his head around, especially unhappy to see that random patrons in their bar are laughing too for some reason. Then again, it could also be the dementia. 

“Aw, man, he got got didn’t he?”

“He got got!” 

Mac scowls as he fades back into the ever-so changing and moving conversation. “Hey, hey, no, I didn’t get got! Dennis, Den–he, he got one of the digits wrong.”

“He’s avoiding you, shithead,” Frank derides, laughing in a disgusting manner. His hands are all sooty and gross for some reason.

“He made a mistake.”

“He  _ did not _ make a mistake.”

Someone laughs. “Yeah, he really didn’t.”

“Oh shut up. I’m going home,” his threatens, jutting out his finger. “Don’t make me do it, ‘cuz I’ll do it, I’ll go home.”

“Sure, you go ahead and do that, and we’ll, we’ll cut your earnings out.”

Mac’s halfway out the door, but he stops when he hears this.

“What now?”

“Oh,  _ yeah, _ now that Dennis took off and took all the money with him, Mac’s got shit luck paying the rent, doesn’t he?” 

“He’ll get kicked out if he doesn’t help us,” Frank says, and they all continue to have a conversation in front of him and without him, referring to him in third person. It’s distressing and annoying.

“B-but Dennis and I have a joint bank account.”

“Of… course you did,” Dee clears her throat. “But are you sure he didn’t empty it out and make a new one in North Dakota?” A pause, but it’s loaded with anticipation from all who listen. “Just like he did with his phone number?”

Mac gulps, looking like a lost sheep seeking solace amongst the wolves. He takes slow, careful steps back towards the gang. “What do you guys need me to do?”

* * *

Dennis has never been this scared after turning a knob, opening a door wide open. Sure, back when he lived in Philly during the city’s more dangerous days, when he and Mac were holed up in a rougher part of town, few would be the times he didn’t take a cautious look through the peephole before unlocking the door for someone frantically banging on it. But North Dakota, as far as he’s experienced it, is peaceful. Easy. Somewhere he could let his guard down. Somewhere he could open the door without checking the peephole first, because Mandy always forgets her keys, and if it’s not Mandy at the door, it’s some nice neighbor with a peach cobbler in hand, or a tray of lasagna because they made too much. 

They do get a little lippy, make unnecessary conversation that he does find kind of annoying, but yelling at them in front of Brian (it’s just Brian now, Mandy felt like Brian Jr. was futile since he wasn’t really named after anyone) would probably get the kid crying and that’d be even worse. Still, though. They’re harmless. And don’t ever enter the house. So he’d open the door for them without thinking any day of the week. 

(Then again, it’s only been like, six days, so this could still change.)

Now, though? Now his heart is swinging wildly like a very anxious pendulum, and maybe next time he’ll think twice before naively opening the door. 

“Hey, Dennis.” 

The irony of all this is strong, he’s aware, because the wary behavior he’s now considering to re-adopt is derived not from fear of the unknown, the strangers, the wackos he could get chopped up by, but rather… familiarity. The person he knows best. The person who knows _ him _ best. And in some ways… most intimately too.

There is a heavy brass ball on his throat. It presses down, hard but not piercing, suffocating and strong. It rolls, up and down, from his neck to his chest, and then back up again. One thing doesn’t change: he can’t breathe. His eyes, they can’t blink.

Tiny, scrambled footsteps make their way to Dennis’ side. “Dada?” 

Dennis picks him up, just to give himself something to do. It has a purpose, too: Brian can’t walk all that well yet, and if he falls and hurts himself, that’s a doctor’s fee he doesn’t even want to think about. 

Mac’s lips fall apart once their eyes meet, and Dennis knows there’s so much he wants to say, and the feeling is mutual, so maybe this ever-growing silence deserves a break.    


“How… did you find me?”

Somehow, this answer seems to tick Mac off rather than appease him. With a disdainful scoff, he pushes past, walking into the house. Dennis wants to say something along the lines of how he hasn’t granted Mac permission to enter, but maybe it’s best if he doesn’t say a word. 

He chooses to follow him instead.

“It’s true, isn’t it?” Mac turns around suddenly, and they bump into each other again. “The, the others were right? You gave me a fake number?”

Dennis doesn’t think Mac’s looked this angry in a while, or, well, he has, but it was never really directed at him. All Dennis would get from him these past few months was fear, submission… sometimes with love sprinkled in between. And Dennis would contrast that whenever he could with shouting, scowls, pure, unadulterated anger. Hatred. Anything to put Mac in his place. Anything to make it all feel normal. Make him feel in control. 

How in control is he now? 

“Say you didn’t do it.”

“Do what?” 

“Give me that fake number. Say it was an accident, okay?” he huffs, sitting distressed on the couch and holding his weary head in his weary hands. “Just tell me  _ something, _ dude.”

“What is it you want to hear?” 

There’s a sharpness in Dennis’ voice, because what explanation does he even owe Mac? And why, why does Mac, with that angled jaw and those sad doe eyes, chapped lips that could break him if pressed against his own, why does he feel the need to be sorry?

“I don’t know,” Mac is lying on the couch now, and it’s like he owns the damn place, something worthy of an eye roll but Dennis doesn’t dish it out. “That, that the gang was wrong. That you made a mistake, that you were totally gonna give me your number, but it got, like, switched out by the phone company at the last second.” He scoffs, looking resigned. Like everything he wants is a dried up hope and wishful thinking. “Does that make me crazy? Me wanting you to call? I just, I just fucking missed you. You even scared to be here, dude?” he shakes his head, like his disbelief will make it all go away. “This isn’t you, man.”

“Mac,” Dennis says, mouth moving but legs frozen. “I’ve been gone a week.”

“So? When’s the last time we weren’t together for that long?”

It strikes Dennis over the head when he realizes that time is a little under twenty or so years ago. 

Before he gets to unpack all of that though, the doorbell rings, accompanied with knocks on the door, and Dennis takes off to attend to it, loving the potential distraction. Mandy walks in quicker than usual when he opens up for her. 

“Is Mac here yet?” she asks curiously, pushing past Dennis, who looks a pretty mix of confused and outraged. 

“How’d you know he was here?”

“Hey Mandy!” Mac sits up on the couch now, waving at Mandy. Shit. He’s in a trap. A web of lies.

“Did, did you,” he scratches his head, tripping on his words, “you two planned this?”

“Planned?” she snorts. “You betcha.” 

“I had Mandy’s number,” Mac explains. “The gang and, well we were doing a scheme with kids and RPGs–”

Dennis’ eyes widen, a bit ticked and feral at the same time, because it’s all too painfully real. 

“How does that have anything to do with how you got Mandy’s number?”

“Nothing. I got it when she was in our apartment.”

“What’s the scheme with the kids all about then?” Mandy asks with an innocent curiosity.

“Oh, we did this scheme where we like, tricked kids into thinking they got to play with a rocket launcher, so we’d tell them there was an actual rocket in the launcher, then we’d like, blindfold them, put the RPG in their hands, and play shooting sounds,” he leans back on the couch now, “it was awesome.”

“Well, I uh, sure do hope those kids were safe!” Mandy laughs nervously, carding her fingers through her hair. This reassures Dennis. If Mac looks dangerous and a bad influence to be around, she might kick him out so Dennis won’t have to. It’s a perfect situation.

“Yeah, sure,” Mac says. “I was there helping the kids hold onto the RPG, so they wouldn’t drop it and shit, you know how weak kids can be,” he lowers his voice, “suckers.” 

“Huh!” Mandy doesn’t look unhappy for some reason. “Don’t quite understand what parents would want their kids around something so dangerous.”

“Parents were  _ crazy _ over the whole thing actually,” Mac says, like he’s confused because the gang’s scheme accidentally turned into a legitimate business instead of a quick hustle for some even quicker cash. “Like, they somehow found out the launcher thing was fake, and we had a queue outside the bar,” he sighs. “Got to be too much work so, we shut it down. Kids were happy though.”

Mandy beams. “That’s mighty sweet of ya.” 

“I mean, they were happy until we shut the whole thing down. Then they got like,  _ hysterical.” _

Dennis exhales, stifling a groan. He can’t believe they’re  _ bonding _ now. “Okay, yes, great, let’s shut this subject down now,” he looks at Mac. “What are you  _ doing _ here?”

“Well now, he just wanted to pay his best friend a visit,” Mandy explains. “He’s a welcome guest.”

“Dada,” all three adult heads turn to where Brian’s child head is, facing Mac’s knee, his tiny toddler arms wrap around his calf. “Dada, up!”

“No no, no–” he starts to get anxious now–”not Dada, no up. Daddy’s right over here.”

Brian gets louder and more insistent. “Dada! Up?” 

Mac breaks into a heartwarming smile, with far more tenderness than he should be capable of, and picks Brian up, putting him on his lap. He playfully bounces him up and down, and Brian cracks up into a fit of giggles. 

“He really likes ya,” remarks Mandy, who looks touched at the sight. 

“You think so?” Mac turns to her, unable to believe this two. “You like that, kid?” 

He lies Brian down on the couch on his back, tickles Brian and makes faces at him, blubbering to get those laughs he so craves, that they all crave, to be honest. Dennis can’t deny it either; Brian loves Mac to bits. 

“You should stick around more,” Mandy suggests, “you know, we do have an extra room.”

Mac’s eyes brighten. He looks ecstatic. Oh no. “Really? You mean… I could live here?”

“I don’t see why not, sweetheart. Stick around for a bit, at least, why don’tcha?” 

“Y-you, he–” Dennis feels himself choke–”what now?”

* * *

This is unbelievable.

He’s just standing there, middle of the kitchen, cooking, making breakfast. Like everything is his. Like he didn’t just barge into the house yesterday and worm his way into living here. So what if Brian likes him, so what if the kid’s crawling around the kitchen right now, babbling and smiling and waiting for Mac so they can play? Who says that gives him the right to steal their food for himself?

That’s not how this works. That’s not how all of this was supposed to go. 

“Dude. What’s your play here?”

Mac flips an egg on the pan, makes a real show of it, pretends he hasn’t nearly dropped the egg and sort of ruined the yolk on the landing. He spins around, doing it flashy to make up for his sloppy pan flipping work, and gives Dennis what could only be the smile to end all mornings. 

“Play? What play, Dennis? Oh, are we gonna do a scheme?”

Dennis sighs. “No we’re not doing a—I meant what’s your  _ deal, _ Mac. What are you doing here?” 

“Well, I mean–” he turns and attempts dumping the egg on a plate over his shoulder, but half of it lands on the counter–”I dunno. Guess I’m making you breakfast.” He slides the plate over. There’s baked beans on the side, some toast, burnt, and then Mac’s ill-attempted fried egg. 

He would almost be touched at the seemingly pure intentions behind Mac’s little good morning meal if it weren’t so half-assed and disgusting. 

“You’re eating that,” Dennis says dismissively, “I’m making my own food.” 

“Suit yourself,” Mac shrugs, and then heads over to the couch, but Dennis grabs him by the sleeve.

“Don’t go,” Mac turns around and his eyes sparkle with hope. Dennis wants so badly to roll his eyes, so he does. It’s like, everything he does seems romantic now because of Mac. Stupid, stupid Mac. “I’ll show you how to make actual breakfast food. Something that’s edible.” He cracks his egg in the pan and it lands perfectly on hot stainless steel. The yolk doesn’t break. “Something  _ divine.”  _

When he flips his egg, he makes sure to focus, only breaking eye contact to watch Mac out of competitive spite. Mac is biting his lips and doesn’t seem to have torn his gaze away any time since the moment Dennis told him to stay. He clears his throat, feeling warm despite the house’s internal cooling system, and doesn’t look at Mac anymore. Not deliberately, anyway. 

They eat breakfast on the couch, side by side, aware of the warmth and tension between their outer adjacent laps, but saying nothing of it. 

“Your eggs smell like, so good,” Mac comments, and a breath unwittingly catches in his throat. “You’ll make me some tomorrow, right?”

He clears his throat. “If you promise to leave tomorrow, I’ll cook you all the damn eggs you want, bro.” 

Mac elects to ignore that, because of course he does. “Hey, Dennis.”

“What.”

“You wanna play a game?”

“What game? Mandy’s got nothing hooked up here.”

“Oh,” Mac sounds disappointed. “Then why’re you still here?”

“Were you not listening when I made that speech?”

He looks unfazed, but also solemn in a way Dennis doesn’t know how to take responsibility for. “Yeah, dude. Of course I remember. But how are you gonna be a dad to Brian with no Xbox? You don’t want Brian to become like,  _ a nerd _ , do you?” 

“Well, no–”

“Then you gotta get him those video games, man! Teach him right. Can’t be raising a nerd, ‘cuz, that’d be like,  _ so _ emba–”

“Alright, alright!” Dennis raises his voice to settle whatever rant Mac was about to go on. “We’ll, we’ll go get the Xbox from our apartment. Bring it here.” 

“Really?” 

Mac lights up so bright that even Dennis can’t deny his warmth. He smiles, but only because showing contempt and frowning is so much harder than usual. “Yeah, dude,” he has a bite of egg, “really.” 

“Okay. So… you wanna play that game or not?” 

“What game? I thought we cleared up the whole Xbox thing.”

“Oh, I wasn’t gonna suggest we play a video game.” 

“It’s a real life game?”

“Yeah, dude. A real life game.”

“What is it?”

Mac puts down his game, excited that he’s got Dennis in an agreeable mood. “Okay. So, you see how Brian’s like five feet-ish away from us?”

“I guess. What about it?”

Mac gets up, even though he clearly doesn’t need to no matter what game he’s suggesting. “I was thinking–” he points at Brian–”we should both call out to the baby. We could like wave toys at him and shit, make funny faces, and see who he goes to.”

Dennis frowns. “And why would we do that?”

“To… see who he likes more?”

He sets his cutlery on an almost empty plate with a clang. “I’m not doing that,” he stands up, makes a beeline for the kitchen, then dumps his plate in the sink. 

“Why not, Dennis?” Mac walks towards the kitchen with his empty plate. He piles it on top of Dennis’ dirty dishes, definitely to make some kind of point. “Scared you’ll lose?”

He’s standing too close, but Dennis is too ticked off at Mac’s goading to point this out to him, or to himself. In fact, his lips move closer to Mac’s when he speaks. “You’re some random stranger, Mac. I’m the kid’s goddamn father. I’m just trying not to embarrass you."

“Oh yeah?” When Mac picks up Brian instead of getting closer to Dennis, he feels chills that spike deep into his heart and he is pained by the loss. Mac holds Brian close to his face and makes a series of strange noises that Brian is treating like best goddamn standup comedy he’s ever heard in his stupid life. “Who’s Dada?”

“Dada,” Brian repeats, and one might argue that this is a very vague answer since he did not submit any known legal name for one’s consideration, nor did he point his finger at anyone to make any sort of choice. It’s highly possible that Brian doesn’t even know what the hell Mac is asking of him. It’s likely, actually, and it’s even  _ more _ likely that all that infant child knows is warm smiles, big hearts, and funny faces. 

The worst part is, Dennis can’t even blame him. Maybe Brian will grow up one day, get wise, unlearn foolishness and vulnerability and he’ll avoid Mac like the plague, see him for who he is and get scared off, naturally. 

Dennis doesn’t have that luxury. Dennis watches Mac raise that bubbly baby above his head, yell ‘airplane! airplane incoming! zoooooooom!’ and all he can do is unlearn everything he’s feared for over twenty years of knowing the man, his lips upturning, his eyes sparkling once more, chasing Mac around the house like it doesn’t even matter. 

* * *

“Hey, so, where’s my car?”

Mac freezes up. 

“Uh… what car, dude?”

“What  _ car?” _ Dennis nearly slams their Xbox down, his eyes narrowing at Mac in suspicion. “What other car would I be talking about, Mac?” 

“I thought we came here for the Xbox.” 

“Yeah, but I’m not paying for another pair of plane tickets back to North Dakota. My keys are still with me dude, so just show me where the Range Rover is. Mandy’s with her family for a week, we’ll just road trip back.” 

When Mac brings him outside Paddy’s and awkwardly gestures to a vaguely familiar blown-up melted piece of junk… Dennis almost feels stupid, because he should’ve fucking known this was gonna happen. 

Well, no, of course he didn’t know that this exact situation would be triggered by his departure. If he’d known, he’d have driven off with the damn thing, he’s not an idiot. But god, he should’ve known his car’s fate when Mac danced around the issue like it was high school and Dennis was calling him out on overcharging him for weed again. 

“Mac.”

Mac keeps quiet. For once. Which at the moment is both ideal yet not ideal at the same time. 

“Mac, explain this.” 

“We… blew up your car with... the rocket launcher?”

Dennis exhales, his breath tight through the clenched lips of his mouth. He’s starting to piece together the origins of that RPG kids scheme the gang cooked up while he was away. “And… why did that happen?”

“It, it was Frank’s idea,” Mac tattles, pointing to the bar with a shaky finger, making it painfully obvious with his eyes, shaking lips, body language, and his vibes in general that the whole thing was totally, totally his idea and his alone.

“I didn’t ask  _ who _ wanted to do it, Mac, I asked  _ why _ it happened,” he enunciates and emphasizes his words sternly to get Mac to… well, he’s not exactly sure what he’s trying to extract from Mac, after all, his car is unsalvageable, so, he’s… whatever. He wants Mac to take this issue more seriously, at the very least.

“I guess…” Mac scratches the back of his neck. “Well, we were all kinda pissed when you left.”

He scoffs, ridiculing this. “Pissed? We all get pissed, all of us, all the time, the entire gang gets pissed as shit over nothing! But we don’t blow up cars, Mac! We resolve our anger through–”

“Wait, I don’t get it, we’ve blown up tons of cars when we were angry–”

“That’s not the point!” He yells, face going red, and he can see Mac’s anger boiling too, and maybe that’s what he wants, them just yelling at each other and tearing the house down with fury again, fury that hides what they feel but would rather die than say. 

(He won’t say ‘I love you’, because he hates to feel it. ‘I miss you’ is out of the question because they’re right next to each other and what he really means is ‘How did we turn out this way?’. He could say ‘Fuck off’, ‘I hate you’, ‘You make me miserable’ and mean it all… but.) 

“Not the point?” Mac huffs. “Fuck you, dude. You really think that’s not the point? That’s the whole damn point! You ditched us, dude! You got us all wrapped up in that fucking scheme and then you took off like it was nothing! Like I was, like  _ we _ were nothing. You piece of shit. So don’t go, go acting like it’s something else. You _ left, _ Dennis.” 

Mac’s eyes are swollen and he’d be busy pointing it out if he weren’t fighting the urge to blink and rub his own. His breath runs short, something about what Mac’s said is having some unexplainable effect on him. If he’s feeling upset, or sad, or tearful in any way, he shouldn’t be. Because Mac’s talking a load of crap. 

“That’s all bullshit. None of the others called me up, you idiot. Me leaving meant nothing to the gang.” He clenches down on his lip, to make that the reason why he’s hurting. “And don’t you go acting like I fucking abandoned you. I left? Me? How am I supposed to leave if you don’t let me go? Leave me alone, Mac!  _ Then _ you get to be pissed about it.”

He thinks he’s won for the next few silent moments, Mac’s head all tilted, but then his wet cheeks don’t really feel like a win.

“You really think,” he clears his stuffed nose, “you walking out… doesn’t hurt enough on its own?”


End file.
